Out of the Crowd
by MiaRoseT
Summary: On her first journey to Hogwarts, Hermione Granger can't understand the reason why such a large crowd has gathered outside one of the train compartments.


**Disclaimer: All characters, settings and recognisable quotes belong to J.K. Rowling.**

Out of the Crowd

Hermione Granger paced anxiously up and down one of the carriages of the Hogwarts Express. Even though it was her first journey on this train, she felt much too nervous to stand still and take in the unfamiliar sights and sounds all around her.

As she reached the end of the carriage, she turned on her heel so that she could head back the way she came. She wasn't really looking where she was going, so she was only mildly startled when she walked headlong into a group of older students, who all sighed and made a few comments about annoying first years before they walked away from her.

Hermione knew that it would probably be a good idea to stop pacing and return to the compartment where she had left her luggage, but she also knew that after only a few minutes of sitting in her seat, she would no doubt start to worry about everything again, then she would start to fidget and think out loud or maybe even whisper a few spells under her breath without even realising that she was doing it, which would definitely get on the other students' nerves.

Instead, she paused for a few seconds to stare at her reflection in the glass of one of the windows, hurriedly wiping away a speck of what looked like dirt from her nose. She had been writing notes about Sorting Ceremonies and Hogwarts Houses for the first few minutes of the journey, and she had put her hand up to her face to run it through her hair a few times due to nerves, so she was sure that the 'dirt' was really a spot of ink.

Now that the ink had been wiped away, she definitely _looked _the part, what with her brand new Hogwarts robes and a recently purchased wand sticking out of one of the pockets. She hadn't been able to do very much about her hair, but after a few minutes of half-heartedly trying to run a brush through it in her bedroom earlier in the morning, she had reached the conclusion that the other students would (hopefully) be more interested in her ability to perform magic than her hairstyle.

Hermione had decided several hours ago that she would change into her robes long before she arrived at King's Cross Station, so that the other witches and wizards would be in no doubt that she was just like them and definitely belonged on platform nine and three-quarters.

The confused stares from several of the Muggle guards on platform ten had therefore been almost expected. Perhaps more shocking were the raised eyebrows and the almost sarcastic smirks from a group of students wearing green scarves who she had encountered just before eleven o'clock, when she had been in the process of trying to open the train door and balance several suitcases and piles of books in her arms at the same time.

Hermione sighed as she turned away from the window and replayed that recent memory in her mind.

Oh how she hoped that she had done enough to prepare for this new experience. She had tried her best to cover all ground, memorising every single page of the first year textbooks and reciting simple spells and incantations almost to the point of obsession. She had also tried to learn as much as she could about Hogwarts and the rest of the wizarding world, purchasing copies of history books and various other volumes from Flourish and Blotts for background reading.

She had assumed that every student from a wizarding family would be able to recite extracts from _Hogwarts: A History_ by heart (even though a second year girl from a pure-blood family had assured her only half an hour ago that this definitely wasn't the case), and she hadn't wanted to be one of the only students who was unable to do so.

After all that hard work, she would be so upset if any of the professors suggested that she wasn't good enough to be in their classes or if the other students refused to take the time to get to know her.

Hermione had always felt so different to other children her own age, and on the day she received her Hogwarts letter, she had really felt as though she finally had an explanation for her sense of isolation throughout her childhood, and she had assumed that she would soon be heading to a place where she would feel like she belonged.

As the train continued with its journey and Hermione took a few more steps forward, she noticed that a group of students had gathered around the door to one of the compartments further down the carriage. They all appeared to be standing on tiptoes and pushing and shoving each other to get a closer look at whatever, or whoever, was inside.

Deciding that she had nothing better to do apart from her anxious pacing, Hermione headed in the direction of the enthusiastic group of students.

"What _are _you all staring at?" she asked bossily as she approached them.

A few of the girls threw sharp glances in her direction, and at least two of them rolled their eyes. Hermione was disappointed, but at the same time not particularly shocked by their response. After all, her remarks had always been met with similar reactions from the children at her primary school.

"Look," one of the girls finally responded, "_he's _in there!

Another girl let out an excited squeal at this exclamation. Hermione had to try really hard not to glare at the girl in disapproval. She had always struggled to get along with girls who constantly giggled and shouted about boys.

"Who?" Hermione finally asked, none the wiser as to who they were referring to.

The girl simply said a few words, as though that would explain everything: "_Him_, the boy sitting with his friend in the compartment! You must _know _why we're staring…?"

Hermione shook her head slowly in exasperation, but in the end curiosity got the better of her and she pushed past a few of the girls so that she could take a quick look through the compartment window.

She stared for a moment or two. Then she looked away. Then she looked back again. Then she turned to walk away, but before she had even started to move, her eyes flickered back in the direction of the compartment.

She stood there staring transfixed at the boy sitting on the left hand side of the compartment who looked like he was also about to begin his first year at Hogwarts. She wasn't sure what it was about him that held her attention, but at the same time she felt almost certain that she didn't want the other girls to open the door and barge in there to talk to him before she got the chance.

He seemed to be so happy and relaxed with his arm draped casually over his seat and a smile on his face as he talked to the boy sitting opposite him, as though the two of them had spent the whole journey sharing funny stories and telling jokes instead of wasting time worrying about why students wearing green scarves would smirk and sneer at first years.

Judging by his relaxed expression, he was definitely more comfortable in the wizarding world than she was, but he had apparently felt no rush to change into his school robes. Instead, he sat there wearing old clothes with his hair slightly dishevelled and some sort of mark on his face.

He looked completely different to anybody she had ever met before. Completely different to her. And this particular observation intrigued her a lot more than any deductions she could make about his family background.

She also noticed with a faint wave of disapproval that he was surrounded by various sweets and cards with moving pictures on, which seemed to have been scattered all over the compartment floor.

Hermione was almost tempted to walk in there and 'helpfully' suggest that the two boys try to clean up the messy compartment before they arrived at Hogsmeade Station, but she had a feeling that by doing so she would only interrupt their enthusiastic conversation and spoil their fun.

Another part of her would have quite liked to have gone in there to join in with the laughing and joking, but she was unsure about how he would react if she did so, or if she would even be able to say anything amusing to make the two boys smile.

"I've heard _so _much about his past and his family," one the girls sighed from behind her.

Hermione blinked in shock and turned slowly to look at the girl. She had been so busy staring that she had almost forgotten that she was surrounded by a group of students.

"Why would you have heard about-" Hermione started to ask, but then she quickly stopped herself as she realised that she was talking rather loudly, and the sound of her voice might echo into the compartment.

She was slightly surprised that the boy seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that such a large crowd had gathered outside the door, as it would only take one quick look to his right to notice that they were all standing there. Unless for some reason he got that sort of reaction all the time.

After a final glance into the compartment, Hermione walked away from the group of girls, wishing that she had an excuse to go in there to talk to the boy and ask him a few questions about the wizarding world.

She had only taken a few steps when she was stopped by a round-faced boy who had fastened his robes incorrectly.

"I c-can't find T-Trevor anywhere," the boy told her in a shaky voice, before he burst into tears.

Hermione moved closer to him so that she could pat him sympathetically on the shoulder. If he hadn't looked so distressed, she might have felt slightly relieved that she wasn't the only one who felt completely overwhelmed by this new experience.

"Don't worry, we'll find him," she told him in what she hoped was a soothing tone of voice, even though she had no idea who 'Trevor' actually was or what he might look like.

It took a few more minutes for the boy to stop crying for long enough to introduce himself as Neville Longbottom and for Hermione to establish that Trevor was in fact a pet toad, and then they were off, the two of them separating so that they could search the whole carriage.

Neville started to open various compartment doors so that he could ask various groups of students if they had seen him.

Hermione had only spoken to one or two students when she found herself outside the same compartment from a few minutes ago. She looked around and was almost relieved to see that the crowd seemed to have dispersed.

Neville Longbottom joined her, muttering something about how he wasn't sure if he had already been in that compartment.

Hermione stood there in silence, her hand hovering uncertainly above the door handle. After a few seconds, she decided that this might be her only opportunity to talk to the two boys before they arrived at Hogwarts, as there was still a chance that the crowd of students would return before the end of the journey.

Besides, it would be easier to think of something to say to him now that she had the missing toad story as a potential conversation opener.

With one last quick check of her reflection in the window to make sure that all of the ink had definitely been wiped away from her face, she opened the door.

"Has anyone seen a toad?" she asked as she walked inside.

_Well, that didn't go very well at all_.

Hermione sighed inwardly as she walked away from the train compartment. Neville Longbottom quickly fell into step behind her.

The boy who she had been so interested in talking to hadn't appeared to be particularly impressed by her announcement that she could already cast basic spells, or her declaration that she had already learnt all the set books off by heart.

It also hadn't helped that the moment she left the compartment, a girl had run eagerly towards her, shouting something about how she would have got _his_ autograph, if it had been her.

Hermione had found this comment slightly strange, as she hadn't been remotely interested in asking for anybody's autograph. She would have preferred to have asked the boy if he had learnt many spells or if he knew very much about the witches and wizards on the Chocolate Frog Cards.

But then Hermione had thought about the contents of the history books that she had just mentioned to the boys and all of a sudden the reaction of the crowd of girls made sense. She wondered why she hadn't worked it out earlier.

She was quickly distracted from this thought as she started to wonder why she had felt so disappointed when the boy seemed to sigh almost in relief when she left him and his friend alone.

She tried to work out what she had done wrong. She _had_ spoken to both of the boys rather quickly without pausing for breath, but this was simply a nervous habit that she had had for as long as she could remember. As a result, he had seemed embarrassed and reluctant to talk to her about casting spells. Perhaps he was nervous too.

It definitely hadn't been the cheerful introduction to fellow first years that she had hoped for, but at the same time, those moments talking to the two boys had definitely distracted her from her nagging feeling of anxiety about the arrival at Hogwarts. And when she thought about it, maybe it wasn't really a bad thing that the boy didn't appear to base his friendships purely on a student's spell-casting abilities.

Eventually, Neville found his toad, and he headed into one of the compartments with Trevor cradled protectively in his hands, apparently unwilling to let him out of his sight again. Hermione followed him and took a seat, staring glumly out of the window.

It didn't take long before she felt restless again and her worries about everything that could potentially go wrong during her first few days at Hogwarts started to creep back into her thoughts.

As a way of diverting her attention, she jumped to her feet and muttered something about going to ask the driver if they were nearly there. As she headed to the front of the train, she noticed a tiny shadow on the wall. Before she could look around, Trevor the toad jumped past her and disappeared into another compartment.

As the afternoon turned into evening and the train started to slow down, everything descended into chaos. Students were running up and down the carriages, shouting to each other in excitement whilst others frantically tried to change into their robes.

A few minutes after she had finished speaking to the driver, Hermione found herself yet again in the carriage from earlier, standing a few feet away from the two boys' compartment. Much to her irritation, the crowd had gathered again, now twice as large, and even more students were elbowing past her with excited squeals as they ran to join the group.

She hadn't planned to go back into the compartment, but she decided that it was probably better to be in there than to stand outside amongst the students who were racing up and down the carriage. Besides, the two boys still hadn't changed into their school robes, and they would perhaps be somewhat grateful if she informed them that they would be arriving soon.

She started to slide the door open, hoping that this time he wouldn't be so irritated by her presence.

"What _has _been going on?" she couldn't help asking as she walked inside, noticing that there were now even more sweets all over the floor.

"You've got dirt on your nose. You've got _dirt _on your _nose_?" Hermione repeated the words several times in disbelief as she left the carriage for a second time and tried her best not to blush.

_You've got dirt on your nose_.

_That _was the best line she could up with? She was obviously feeling a lot more nervous than she had first thought. No wonder he had glared at her though.

Why was it so difficult to think of anything interesting to say to him? More importantly, why did she _care_ so much about what she said to him?

She couldn't answer either question, but at the same time she couldn't help but hope that things would change when they arrived at Hogwarts. She hoped that everything would calm down after the initial excitement of the first few days had worn off so that she would be able to get to know him.

She wasn't sure why this idea appealed to her so much, as she had a feeling that any further interactions with the boy would probably lead to a lot of bickering and awkward conversations.

At the very least, she knew that she had plenty of time to find out if she wanted this boy to be friend or not. And the other boy too, who had seemed nice enough, even though he had looked at her with a slightly baffled expression when she spoke. She would prefer it though if the crowds of students didn't follow him around everywhere at Hogwarts to ask for autographs or to ask questions about his past.

Speaking of crowds…

"Did you talk to him? Did you?" a girl asked Hermione breathlessly as she walked towards her with several older students in tow.

"Who?" Hermione asked distractedly. She was more focused on replaying the dirt-on-your-nose comment in her head.

"Harry Potter," the girl told her with an exasperated expression and a tone of voice that said that this should have been obvious.

When Hermione continued to stare at them blankly, the group of girls pointed to the boy with jet black hair who was sitting on the right hand side of the train compartment.

It was hardly an unexpected response, but for a moment Hermione was taken aback.

"Oh…him…I know, I already read about…I mean…I wasn't really…I, yes," Hermione answered as one of the girls nodded sympathetically as though this flustered reaction was to be expected.

The other girls looked at her enviously.

"_I_ would have asked for his autograph, if it had been me," another girl mumbled, repeating the words of the student who Hermione had encountered after her first visit to the compartment.

Hermione stayed silent, deciding that it would probably be easier not to offer any contradictory comments. Eventually, the girls seemed to get bored and they walked away.

Hermione looked from the crowd of students to the two boys and smiled to herself as she noticed that the boy on the left hand side of the compartment had now wiped the dirt off his nose.

Not once had this boy's name been mentioned in any of the books that Hermione had read. It was highly unlikely that people ever asked him for his autograph. He probably didn't have any heroic stories about his past to share. And Hermione didn't care one bit.

The students in the crowd might have been staring avidly at Harry Potter, but Hermione's attention had been entirely focused on the boy sitting opposite him with dirt on his nose.


End file.
